Christianity and War 



A SERMON 

by 
Shepherd Knapp 



Christianity and War 



A SERMON 

by 

Shepherd Knapp 



1917 

The W. B. Crombib Company 

Worcester. Man. 






Worcester, Mass., 

March 13, 1917. 



My dear Dr. Knapp: 



Having been very much impressed by your sermon of last 
Sunday morning, and believing the message it conveyed is 
one which should reach out beyond those who were privileged 
to hear it, and also a message which those who heard it could 
read and consider again to their benefit, we request and urge 
you to put it in printed form for distribution. 

If you will do so, and will so advise us, it will give us pleasure 
and great satisfaction to see to it that the expense of so doing 
is taken care of. 

Sincerely yours, 

G. W. Mackintire, 

C. W. HOBBS, 

Charles F. Fuller. 



Rev. Shepherd Knapp, D.D., 
Worcester, Mass. 



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Christianity and War 

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, 
or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, 
or sword ? — Romans 8: 35. 

You may think that this is merely a classic quotation from 
a document nearly two thousand years old. But, as a matter 
of fact, it states a question that is about as up-to-date as any 
question could be. 

You will see this at once, if you leave out the middle part 
of the text, and bring the two ends of it together. Though, 
for that matter, even the middle part sounds up-to-date 
enough — "tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, 
peril." Haven't our newspapers been full of just these things 
for two years and a half? What else do we think and talk 
about but the War, and its methods and results, of some of 
which this list of words gives a fairly accurate description? 
But we will not stop just now to dwell upon that. Leave out 
all that middle part of the text, and bring the two ends of it 
together. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? — 
shall the sword?" 

"The sword" is the symbol of war, and "the love of Christ" 
is the essential, controlling principle of the Christian religion. 
To ask, then, whether the sword shall separate us from the 
love of Christ is as much as to say, "Shall war separate us 
from Christianity?" Is there such an irreconcilable conflict 
between war and Christianity that we can have only one of 
them at a time? Does going to war mean inevitably going 
from Christ? Perhaps we may expect the answer "Yes" 
to this question; or is the fact, rather, that we ask it, as Paul 
did originally, with the confident intention of drawing out the 
answer " No!" " The sword shall not separate us from the love 
of Christ." If we Americans actually do go to war with the 
Central Powers of Europe, as every day looks more likely 
and seems more near, do we believe that we can take our 
Christianity with us? And if so, on what terms? 



Are Christianity and War Irreconcilable? 

There are, I know, some of our fellow-countrymen who be- 
lieve that we cannot do this. They think that this assumption 
of a possible harmony between Christianity and war is a 
delusion. These people belong to two classes, as wide apart 
as the poles in their view of war, except in this one matter 
of the relation of Christianity to it. On the one hand, they are 
the extreme pacificists, the peace-at-any-price men, who main- 
tain that Christianity is utterly and eternally opposed to war, 
and that, therefore, there must be no more war of any sort, 
for any cause. On the other hand, there are those who have 
this same belief as to the irreconcilable conflict between war 
and the Christian religion, but who do not themselves believe 
in or accept Christianity, while they do believe in war, regard- 
ing it as useful, or at least necessary. These, therefore, pro- 
pose to push Christianity to one side, in order to give war the 
right of way. 

What Christianity Condemns. 

Now, in defense of the view in which both of these divergent 
groups unite, namely that war is absolutely inconsistent with 
Christianity, there is, of course, much that may be said. 
There is surely no need in this day of the world to urge the 
terribleness of war. War's horrors, instead of being miti- 
gated by the progress of civilization, as we used to hope they 
would be, have been increased by them, and to an extent 
which even actual experience has hardly made credible; while 
the ancient iniquities, which were war's accompaniment in the 
days of savagery, though checked or prevented at some points, 
break out again with concentrated fury at others, and lead 
to the perpetration of such gigantic deeds of cruelty that the 
imagination stands aghast before them. We are beginning, 
even in America, to realize in practical ways what it means to 
have a dozen nations work furiously day and night, year after 
year, destroying the products of the world's industry. And to 
some extent we appreciate the wicked loss to the world through 
year after year of scientific wholesale destruction of human 
life; but probably only the first rudiments of that awful les- 
son have as yet come home to us. What the lowering of the 
physical standard of the race for generations to come is going 



to mean, we can only guess and fear. And then, the millions 
of shattered homes and hearts; the hatreds, impulsive or pur- 
posely engendered, and registered in hateful deeds which will 
not soon be forgotten or forgiven. 

But what is the need to pile up the proofs, that the passions 
and destructive results of war are hideous, demoralizing, 
damnable? And who can fail to see that the religion of Jesus 
Christ, and the Christian Church in which his followers are 
enrolled, must work with might and main to rid the world 
of this incubus, this curse of human life? 

For this reason it is absolutely clear that at least all wars 
of conquest, all wars of aggression for material gain, all wars 
for the acquisition of already occupied territory, are utterly 
repugnant to Christianity; and that the Christian who counte- 
nances a war of that sort is a traitor to his Christian allegiance. 
As well should an individual propose to make his living by 
murder, as a nation set out to improve its material position by 
war. 

In precisely the same way, all wars of vengeance stand con- 
demned by Christianity. This does not mean wars waged for 
the purpose of righting past wrongs, or in order to put an end 
to existing oppressions and iniquities, but it means wars 
which, beyond that, undertake to inflict as much suffering as 
has been endured, to broil the enemy on his own gridiron, 
after it has been wrested from his hand. Wars of that sort 
are unchristian, and the followers of Christ are bound, in 
loyalty to their professed religion, to refuse, condemn, and 
oppose them. 

Moreover, it is not only the war that begins as a war of 
conquest or a war of vengeance, that calls for Christian oppo- 
sition, but also the war that degenerates into that, as it goes 
on. And many wars do thus degenerate, often by the inten- 
tion of designing leaders, who hid their real motives and pur- 
poses, until the nation was committed. 

Does Christianity Condemn All Wars? 

But why, for similar reasons, is not Christianity radically 
opposed to all wars? For certainly Christianity is passion- 
ately opposed to the evils and the miseries which all wars 
produce. More than that, is not one of the main interests of 
Christianity the establishment of an entirely different method 



of human progress, which its Founder taught and practiced, 
a method which is the very antithesis of armed force, the 
method of service, the appeal to man's higher nature, the 
overcoming of evil with good? Why, then, is not Christianity 
unalterably opposed to war of every sort? 

When War Is the Only Way. 

The reason is simple and practical. It is because there are 
some things necessary to be done in order to save the world 
from ruin, and perhaps even some necessary steps in the world's 
upward progress, which cannot at present be accomplished 
in any other way than by war. Every once in a while in the 
world's history there is attempted or perpetrated some in- 
tolerable injustice which there is simply no way of preventing 
or ending except by war. War was the only thing that could 
turn back the Persian invaders of Greece at Thermopylae. 
War is the only thing that can force the Germans out of 
Belgium to-day. The method of Christianity simply has no 
chance to be applied to such instances. 

This is most clear in cases like those just cited, in which 
the need is to defend against aggression; for when, instead of 
that, it is a case of going out to produce by force of arms some 
change for the better, not yet achieved, it is always a question 
whether there is not some other way, slower doubtless, per- 
haps much slower, yet practicable, by which the same result 
could at length be attained. There is always the possibility 
here of evolution as a substitute for revolution, of slow steady 
pressure instead of sword-stroke and gun-shot. And to such 
a possibility as that the Christian is always bound to give the 
fullest and most earnest consideration. He is false to his 
Christian standard of human conduct, if he countenances an 
unnecessary war. 

But when it is a matter of defending human rights against 
the destroyer of them, there is often no chance whatever to do 
anything but strike; it is either make war or be destroyed. 

This may be illustrated, in principle, in individual experi- 
ence, and even in regard to no vaster concern than a man's 
saving of his own body. If a man, who has the good fortune 
to be armed, is attacked by savages on a South Sea island, or 
by thugs in a dark and lonely street in America, is he justified 



in shooting, even though he is a Christian? He certainly is; 
and those who try to apply to this such a saying of Jesus as 
that which commands Christians to "turn the other cheek," 
on the supposition that the profound rule of life expressed in 
that command is applicable to every situation in human 
experience without exception — those who do this make Chris- 
tianity ridiculous. 

And what is true in regard to the mere self-preservation of 
the individual, when murderously attacked, is equally true 
in the case of the preservation of the great human rights and 
hard-won blessings shared by the many citizens of a nation — 
freedom, justice, righteous government, the safeguards and 
energies of an advanced civilization — when these in like 
manner are murderously attacked, by armies advancing 
with cannon and ammunition, or navies with submarine and 
torpedo. This, as clearly as the case of the individual de- 
fending his life, is not a situation in which Christ says to 
his followers, "If any man would take away thy coat, let 
him have thy cloak also." To apply such a word to such a 
case is simply unintelligent. For the only instrument that 
Christianity can use in such a case, to defend the chief 
products of her own age-long endeavor, is war, to oppose in 
arms the enemy which advances to the attack. 

The Last Chance of Another Way. 

Assuming, of course, that the attacking enemy is so strong 
that no other form of opposition except war can defeat its 
hostile purpose. If the attacking nation is not as strong as 
that; if, therefore, there are other means besides war of check- 
ing and restraining it, means more in harmony with Christian 
principle and practice; then the Christians of the nation at- 
tacked are bound by their Christianity to try first the other 
means. As long as there is a fair chance that some more 
Christian method of restraint will achieve the desired pur- 
pose. Christians are bound to defer the extreme expedient of 
war; and for them to claim that the first act of war from the 
other side relieves them of all further responsibility in the 
matter, and that they need no longer take the trouble to seek 
or try any other way of achieving their purpose, is like the 
attitude of the man who said that, being a Christian, he had 



always been perfectly honest, until he found himself in serious 
financial straits; then, of course, he helped himself in the best 
way he could. 

No, a Christian nation is bound to use Christian methods 
just as long as they are practicable, no matter how tedious 
they may be, nor how much self-restraint that policy may 
call for. 

Our human race has come tolerably near to accepting this 
standard of conduct in the sphere of individual relationships. 
We do not attack the bodies of individual evil-doers, till all 
the processes of law and order have been exhausted; and even 
though every year a large number of crimes are still committed, 
we do not therefore begin to make war on criminals: we still 
employ the method of arrest and trial, though our patience 
is often exasperated by the slow and incomplete results. 

If Christian civilization has thus taught us to restrain our- 
selves in the use of force against individuals, how much more 
must the same restraint be demanded in the use of such a 
vastly more terrible form of force as war is, involving, more- 
over, as it does, not only the actual evil-doers, but a multitude 
of innocent people on both sides of the conflict. 

But What Other Way Is There? 

The objection, however, will very naturally be made that, 
while all this insistence on Christian restraint, and on defer- 
ring war to the last possible moment, till every other practi- 
cable expedient has been tried, is sound enough in theory, yet 
in practice it is of little consequence, for are there, as a matter 
of fact, any other practicable expedients? Is there at the dis- 
posal of nations anything except war, by which, in cases of 
serious international wrong-doing, the criminal can be con- 
trolled? There are treaties, of course. But have not treaties 
been declared by one of the leading nations of the world to 
be "scraps of paper," and have they not been dealt with as 
such? There is also talk of some sort of League of Nations, 
involving the establishment of an international police force, 
and many leading men in different parts of the world have 
great hope of this plan; but it lies in the future; it gives us no 
present help. With nations as uncontrolled as they now are, 
therefore, and as bent on the selfish use of their powers, what 
is there but war, it may be said, that can be used to restrain 
or coerce them? 



There is a good deal of foundation for this pessimistic view, 
it must be confessed, and yet we surely know that the situa- 
tion is not as universally and entirely hopeless, short of war, 
as this view would make it. We know that treaties, and faith 
between nations, and sensitiveness to the demands of inter- 
national justice, have by no means gone wholly out of fashion. 
We Americans know that there are nations with which at the 
present day there is no need for us to go to war in defense 
of our rights. England in the course of this present European 
conflict has committed many unwarranted acts against our 
commerce, but we have no thought that war is the remedy; 
we believe that the English nation is still bound by those 
principles of international justice which at length led to the 
payment of the Alabama claims. 

Yes, you say, but come to the main point. How about 
Germany? Has there been any sign that anything but war 
can speak to Germany in a language that she will pay atten- 
tion to? Yes, even Germany has, almost up to the present 
day, shown some sensitiveness to the pubhc opinion of the 
world — not much, it is true, but it has been appreciable, and 
has had its practical effect in modifying or deferring the un- 
lawful acts which her self-interest was all the time urging her 
to commit. And as long as this was true, it was possible to 
use other means than that of war to restrain and oppose her. 

Possible, that is, for the United States, on this side of the 
Atlantic Ocean. The same possibility was not open at all to 
Belgium and France, with only a boundary line between them 
and her. Nor was it open to Great Britain, for whom the 
English Channel would be hardly more defense than a mere 
boundary line, from a Germany once in undisturbed possession 
of the coasts of France and Flanders. For those three nations 
there was no alternative but war. 

And there would have been none for us, had Germany been 
where Canada is, or had Mexico been a Germany. But Ger- 
many being, not on our northern border, but in Europe, and 
busy there; and Mexico, though close to us, not having Ger- 
many's power to wage a successful war against us whether we 
wished a war or not — these things being true, there have been 
during these recent eventful years other methods besides war 
by which the enemies of our rights could be held in check. 
To have neglected these, and to have chosen war instead, would 
have been unchristian. 



Suppose the Other Way Does Not Succeed. 

But when those methods have been tried, and faithfully 
and persistently and thoroughly tried, not merely to the limit 
of human patience, but to the moment which proves that they 
have ceased to be effective, and then America stands at the 
bar of Christianity, and asks, "What now?" — Christianity 
answers "War." And when that moment comes, if come it 
must, Christianity's word to America will not be, "Now you 
may fight," but, "Now you must fight." If, up to that fate- 
ful hour of decision, we shall, as a nation, have followed un- 
swervingly the lead of our religion, step by step, we shall not 
only be able to take Christianity with us, when we go to war, 
we shall go at her command; we shall march as her soldiers; 
we shall fight her battles. 

Apply All This to America. 

It will not have escaped you that the national procedure 
which I have outlined, as that which is dictated by loyalty 
to Christian principles, corresponds in all its main features 
to that which has actually been followed by the President of 
the United States in our recent relations with Germany and 
with Mexico. In the minds of some of you this fact will not 
help to commend the arguments and conclusions which I have 
presented, for you do not approve of President Wilson's 
policies, foreign or domestic; you do not trust his judgment, 
you feel out of sympathy with his methods, and you are of the 
opinion that, in any case, the motive which has prompted him 
to follow his chosen course has not been unswerving devotion 
to a high sense of national duty, united to a firm purpose to 
uphold the justice and freedom for which America stands, but 
rather that he has been guided by expediency, or even by 
timidity, or has been the victim of a temporizing indecision. 

To this it is not fitting for me in this place to say more than 
that, personally, I hold with those who believe the President's 
policy to have been dictated by a clear and consistent sense of 
America's high moral obligation, both as to what ought not 
to be done, and as to what ought to be done. But leaving 
that at one side, what I am bound to declare without any 
reservation or hesitation whatsoever, and do declare with 



all the directness and force at my command, is my conviction 
that, whatever the reason or lack of reason for the Presi- 
dent's foreign policy, whatever his motives, whether high or 
low, the course by which he has led the nation through these 
eventful years has been in its essential points the course which 
Christianity would prescribe. 

Can We Keep Christian to the End? 

And, now, in conclusion, I urge upon you, with ever greater 
earnestness, that the need to listen intently, and with a pas- 
sionate obedience, to the dictates of our religion, instead of 
being lessened at the stage of affairs which we have now 
reached, is rather intensified. Nor, if our armed defense of 
the rights which Germany has trampled on are met by further 
aggression on her part, until at last she forces war upon us, 
can we then relax our anxious striving to be Christians in 
every word and deed. Rather then will come the severest 
test of all. To make war, month after month — war, with all 
that that implies, and still to keep Christian in the motive of 
every aim and act, there is a test that will challenge our 
utmost of moral and spiritual energy. 

God help us, at every moment of the unknown future which 
lies ahead, wherever it may lead, to be able to say, with deep 
sincerity and ringing truth, "The sword has not separated 
us from the love of Christ." 



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